Top Plugins to help secure your WordPress Website

Keeping your WordPress website safe from any attacks is the biggest challenge in today’s fragile internet environment. Consider you woke up one fine day and find your website is down due to an attack or hacked by a hacker. It is always better to take precautions than cure. Though WordPress in itself is a very secure platform. If you keep the WordPress core and all the themes and plugins upto date, there are very less chances of any attack being successful on your website. Still it is always good to have some extra security.

Security Aspects of a WordPress Website

In current online scenario WordPress websites are very much vulnerable to attacks if they are not maintained properly and security aspects are not understood and tackle properly. It sounds utter stupid to sit and wait for an attack and think of solutions after that. It is always better to prepare for worse. So you need to understand the vulnerable security aspects on your WordPress website and plug the security gaps before someone else finds it.

Here we will discuss about the most important security issues and will see to the solutions to plug those gaps

1.Security to User Accounts –

Check if there is any account with default admin username ‘admin’. It makes your site vulnerable to attack as attackers know the username already and only have to guess the password now.

Should keep a tool to check the passwords strength and mustn’t allow any account to be created with weak password.

User enumeration ( What is it ? ) should be stopped so the bots cannot find out user info via author permalink.

2. Security of User Registration Process –

If your website allows users to create their accounts on your website, you should keep some manual approval process for new account.

Use of Captcha and honeypot will also help to keep check on spam and bogus user registrations.

3. Security of User Login Process –

First of all the login process should be protected from the brute force attack ( What is it ? ). There has to be a system in place with should lock the users with a certain IP address or a range of IP addresses for a specific time period.

All users should be forced logout after a specific time period and should be asked to login again.

Add captcha to login and forgot password field.

You should keep a tool where you can keep track of user activities and should be able to block user IP with suspicious activities.

Top WordPress Security Plugins:

Here are 5 plugins which can help you to keep your website secure from any such attack –

1. All in One WP Security and Firewall –

It is a very versatile solution when it comes to WordPress website security. With 600,000 + installation this is quite a popular one also. It is regularly updated to address new threats and available in multiple languages. It provides different type of reports in graphical representation with graphs and tables. This plugin keep checking the vulnerabilities in your WordPress website and keep it secure from external attacks. It also have features to keep your Website’s database secure.

Author – Tips and Tricks HQ, Peter, Ruhul, Ivy

Rating – 5 /5

Installations – 600,000 +

Subscription Type – 100% free

How to install & Use – Go to your WordPress admin panel and search for All in One WP Security. Click for install and then activate it. You will find a new tab in the left sidebar of your admin panel – WP Security. Manage the setting as per your preferences.

Main Features – Some major features of this WordPress Plugin are listed here :

User accounts security

User login & registration security

Database is kept secured by taking scheduled backups or by making an instant backup.

File system is secured

Htaccess and wp-config.php files are backed up and can be restored whenever needed.

Blacklisting specific IP address

Firewall stops any attack at htaccess file level itself i.e. before entering into the WordPress code.

Login attack prevention to deter Brute force attack

Whois lookup can be done for suspicious IPs and hosts

Security scanner runs continuously to check any threat in runtime

Stops comment spamming by monitoring and blocking IP address doing many comments at a time.

Text copy protection to front end of your website, though not recommended.

2. WordFence Security –

It is considered to be the most popular of all the WordPress security plugins. It is a 100% free and open source solution. With 2 million + installation it is the most installed security plugins on WordPress. It provides a whole range of security features :

Author – Wordfence

Rating – 5 /5

Installations – 2 million +

Subscription Type – Basic Version is free, Premium at $8.25 monthly.

How to install & Use – Go to your WordPress admin panel and search for Wordfence Security. Click for install and then activate it. You will find a new tab in the left sidebar of your admin panel – Wordfence. Manage the setting as per your preferences.

Main Features – Major features of Wordfence are as given below :

Firewall blocks complex and brute force attacks

Security Scan alerts you quickly in the event of a security issue

Threat Defense Feed keeps Wordfence up to date with the latest security data

3. BulletProof Security –

What it does – BulletProof security is an awesome WordPress plugin for website security, it comes with features like Malware scanner, firewall .

Author – AITpro Website Security

Rating – 4.5 /5

Installations – 90,000 +

Subscription Type – Basic Version is free, Premium at $ 69.95 one time.

How to install & Use – Go to your WordPress admin panel and search for Bullet Proof Security. Click for install and then activate it. You will find a new tab in the left sidebar of your admin panel below the Settings tab – BPS Security. Manage the setting as per your preferences.

Main Features – Some major features of this WordPress plugin are listed here :

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